IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v77y2022ics0929119922001511.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Benchmarking of pay components in CEO compensation design

Author

Listed:
  • Grinstein, Yaniv
  • Lauterbach, Beni
  • Yosef, Revital

Abstract

We document an important element of CEO compensation design – benchmarking of the pay components. Analyzing a panel of CEO compensation data entailing 1451 S&P 1500 firms during 2006–2019, we find that: 1) Component-of-pay benchmarking more effectively explains CEO compensation design than does total compensation benchmarking; 2) Most pay components exhibit similar benchmarking behavior; the only exception is the milder adjustment of salary to that of peers; 3) Benchmarking of the weight of each component in total compensation is also apparent. Our results suggest that benchmarking of pay components is an economically fundamental part of CEO compensation design.

Suggested Citation

  • Grinstein, Yaniv & Lauterbach, Beni & Yosef, Revital, 2022. "Benchmarking of pay components in CEO compensation design," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:77:y:2022:i:c:s0929119922001511
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2022.102308
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119922001511
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2022.102308?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Gervais & J. B. Heaton & Terrance Odean, 2011. "Overconfidence, Compensation Contracts, and Capital Budgeting," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1735-1777, October.
    2. Mark T. Leary & Michael R. Roberts, 2014. "Do Peer Firms Affect Corporate Financial Policy?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(1), pages 139-178, February.
    3. John Bizjak & Swaminathan Kalpathy & Zhichuan Frank Li & Brian Young, 2022. "The Choice of Peers for Relative Performance Evaluation in Executive Compensation [Peer choice in CEO compensation]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1217-1239.
    4. Foucault, Thierry & Fresard, Laurent, 2014. "Learning from peers' stock prices and corporate investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 554-577.
    5. Bizjak, John M. & Lemmon, Michael L. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2008. "Does the use of peer groups contribute to higher pay and less efficient compensation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 152-168, November.
    6. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    7. Albuquerque, Ana M. & De Franco, Gus & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2013. "Peer choice in CEO compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 160-181.
    8. Laschever, Ron A., 2013. "Keeping up with CEO Jones: Benchmarking and executive compensation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 78-100.
    9. Bizjak, John & Lemmon, Michael & Nguyen, Thanh, 2011. "Are all CEOs above average? An empirical analysis of compensation peer groups and pay design," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 538-555, June.
    10. Kaplan, Steven N. & Holmstrom, Bengt, 2003. "The State of U.S. Corporate Governance: What's Right and What's Wrong?," Working Papers 185, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    11. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    12. De Angelis, David & Grinstein, Yaniv, 2020. "Relative Performance Evaluation in CEO Compensation: A Talent-Retention Explanation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(7), pages 2099-2123, November.
    13. Bengt Holmstrom & Steven N. Kaplan, 2003. "The State Of U.S. Corporate Governance: What'S Right And What'S Wrong?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 15(3), pages 8-20, March.
    14. Faulkender, Michael & Yang, Jun, 2010. "Inside the black box: The role and composition of compensation peer groups," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 257-270, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Frye, Melissa B. & Gatchev, Vladimir A. & Pham, Duong T., 2024. "Director self-dealing: Evidence from compensation peer groups," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & Mani, Sureshbabu & Ye, Pengfei, 2016. "Relative peer quality and firm performance," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/2016, Bank of Finland.
    2. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & Mani, Sureshbabu & Ye, Pengfei, 2016. "Relative peer quality and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 196-219.
    3. Hsu, Yuan-Teng & Huang, Chia-Wei & Koedijk, Kees G., 2023. "Unintended consequences of compensation peer groups on corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2016_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Chien Chi Chu & Xiu‐Fen Su & Yu‐En Lin & Akihiro Omura & Bin Li & Adrian Wai‐Kong Cheung, 2023. "Love thy neighbour: Evidence from capital structure decisions," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(3), pages 2907-2933, September.
    6. Albuquerque, Ana M. & De Franco, Gus & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2013. "Peer choice in CEO compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 160-181.
    7. Michel Magnan & Dominic Martin, 2019. "Executive Compensation and Employee Remuneration: The Flexible Principles of Justice in Pay," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 89-105, November.
    8. Lin, Yu-En & Jiang, Xiao-Tong & Yu, Bo & Lam, Keith S.K., 2023. "Compensation peer crash risks and corporate own investments: New evidences from U.S. stock markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    9. Tor‐Erik Bakke & Hamed Mahmudi & Ashley Newton, 2020. "Performance peer groups in CEO compensation contracts," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 997-1027, December.
    10. Kim, So Yeon & Lee, Kang Ryun & Shin, Hyun-Han, 2017. "The enhanced disclosure of executive compensation in Korea," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 72-83.
    11. Canil, Jean & Karpavičius, Sigitas, 2020. "Compensation consultants: Does reputation matter?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Budsaratragoon, Pornanong & Lhaopadchan, Suntharee & Thomsen, Steen, 2020. "Community and compensation: Director remuneration in Thailand," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    13. Gao, Huasheng & Luo, Juan & Tang, Tilan, 2015. "Effects of managerial labor market on executive compensation: Evidence from job-hopping," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 203-220.
    14. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & John, Kose & Waisman, Maya, 2012. "Urban agglomeration and CEO compensation," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 17/2012, Bank of Finland.
    15. Kaustia, Markku & Rantala, Ville, 2015. "Social learning and corporate peer effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 653-669.
    16. Bailey, Warren B. & Cao, Xiaping & Yang, Zhenyi & Zhou, Sili, 2024. "Who leads and who follows? The cross-border peer effect in investment by Chinese and US firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    17. Mathijs de Vaan & Benjamin Elbers & Thomas A. DiPrete, 2019. "Obscured Transparency? Compensation Benchmarking and the Biasing of Executive Pay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4299-4317, September.
    18. Zhiqiang Lu & Sarath Abeysekera & Hongyu Li, 2015. "Executive Compensation Stickiness And Peer Group Benchmarks: Evidence From Chinese Firms," The International Journal of Business and Finance Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 9(5), pages 25-36.
    19. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2012_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Eaton, Gregory W. & Guo, Feng & Liu, Tingting & Officer, Micah S., 2022. "Peer selection and valuation in mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 230-255.
    21. Kubick, Thomas R. & Lockhart, G. Brandon, 2016. "Do external labor market incentives motivate CEOs to adopt more aggressive corporate tax reporting preferences?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 255-277.
    22. Peng, Qiyuan & Yin, Sirui, 2021. "Does the executive labor market discipline? Labor market incentives and earnings management," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-86.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Benchmarking; CEO compensation; Peer group; Pay mix; Pay components;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:77:y:2022:i:c:s0929119922001511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.